Re-reading James Moffett's work in the light of more recent scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, this paper presents a "deconstructive" account of Moffett's key texts. Understanding them as instances in themselves of rhetoric and textuality, and reading them at once "with" and "against" the grain, the…

With the majority of students with learning disabilities (LD) having difficulties in reading, teachers at all grade levels need to incorporate comprehension strategies into their instruction to explicitly teach students with LD how to use the strategies to enhance their comprehension. One way for teachers to support students' comprehension of…

Story structure is how humans think. If school librarians help students master the elements that define this story structure, then students can be assisted in efficiently and effectively mastering both reading comprehension and all forms of writing. Without exception and without equivocation, research studies conducted over the past quarter…

We examined recalled narratives of boys with fragile X syndrome with autism spectrum disorder (FXS-ASD; N = 28) and without ASD (FXS-O; N = 29), and compared them to those of boys with Down syndrome (N = 33) and typically developing (TD) boys (N = 39). Narratives were scored for mentions of macrostructural story grammar elements (introduction,…

This study interrogated the central theoretical statement that understanding and learning to apply the abstract concept of classical dramatic narrative structure can be addressed effectively through a useful audiovisual teaching method. The purpose of the study was to design an effective DVD teaching and learning aid, to justify the design through…

In a multilingual country such as India, the probability that clinicians may not have command over different languages used by aphasic patients is very high. Since formal tests in different languages are limited, assessment of people from diverse linguistic backgrounds presents speech- language pathologists with many challenges. With a view to…

In 2 previous studies (O'Brien, Rizzella, Albrecht, & Halleran, 1998; Zwaan & Madden, 2004), researchers have provided conflicting accounts about whether outdated information continues to influence the comprehension of subsequent text. The current set of experiments was designed to explore further the impact of outdated information on…

Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to examine how children with isolated speech sound disorders (SSDs; n = 20), children with combined SSDs and language impairment (LI; n = 20), and typically developing children (n = 20), ages 3;3 (years;months) to 6;6, differ in narrative ability. The second purpose was to determine if early narrative…

Recent findings (Keysar, 1994; Weingartner & Klin, 2005) have shown that readers are not always accurate at taking a story character's perspective. When readers evaluated a character's understanding of a written message, they mistakenly took into account information that was inaccessible to that character. The results from the three experiments…

Social skill deficits and learning disabilities often coexist. Academic work is negatively impacted by students' lack of social skills. Remediation of these deficits in pull-out programs has not generally resulted in transfer to real-world settings. Embedding social skills instruction within literature during a read-aloud session taught in the…

The effects of a secondary academic intervention implemented within the context of a three-tiered, positive behavior support model were examined in this study. Second-grade students with limited writing skills who also had either externalizing or internalizing behavior patterns were identified for participation using schoolwide data. Students…

Reliable criterion-referenced assessments are critical as one of the first steps in evidence-based practice. These assessments must also be valid. One of the most important skills to measure in school-age children with language disabilities is the ability to organize language in the form of narratives. The purpose of this paper is to describe a…

James Moffett's "Storm in the Mountains: A Case Study of Censorship, Conflict, and Consciousness" remains as relevant today as it was when it was published in 1988 for those who want to understand the nature and sources of contemporary conflicts in American language and literacy education. Censors continue to try to restrict student…

O'Connor, an author of realistic fiction for children, shares her attempts to strike a balance between carefree, uncensored, authentic, realistic writing and age-appropriate writing. Of course, complicating that balancing act is the fact that what seems age-appropriate to her might not seem so to everyone. O'Connor suggests that while it may be…

This author has been a "reader girl" since the third grade, when she first read "Trumpet of the Swan" on her own. Fourth grade brought C. S. Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, and Joan Aiken. Fifth grade was Cynthia Voigt, Anne McCaffrey, and Robin McKinley. And so it continued with Ellen Raskin, Patricia McKillip, and L. M. Montgomery, a veritable battalion…